Reviews from R'lyeh Post-Christmas Dozen 2021

Since 2001, Reviews from R’lyeh have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction.com before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual (Post-)Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you did not have and someone was happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you. If not, then this is a list of what would have been good under that tree and what you should purchase yourself to read and play in the months to come.

—oOo—

The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection

Golden Goblin Press ($50)

The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection originated as a series of scenarios in the Miskatonic University Library Association monograph line, but Golden Goblin Press has collected and updated them to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, and presented them as a fully playable campaign set in Lovecraft Country. Not though as traditional Investigators of Call of Cthulhu, but as children growing up and attending family holidays—Halloween in Dunwich, Christmas in Kingsport, Easter in Arkham, and Independence Day off Innsmouth. They are aware that their hometowns are different, that horrors—both human and inhuman—lurk in dark places and even beyond the Veil of Sleep. As friends and family, they must face the dangerous truths of the secret world around them, including their relatives… The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection combines a sense of magical realism with Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and infuses traditional Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying with a sense of warmth and charm not found elsewhere in Call of Cthulhu.

Colonial Marines Operations Manual

Free League Publishing ($41.99/£32)

One of the big questions about the Alien: The Roleplaying Game is whether or not it could be played in Campaign mode. Alien: The Roleplaying Game can be played in two modes—Cinematic and Campaign. Cinematic mode is designed to emulate the drama of a film set within the Alien universe, and so emphasises high stakes, faster, more brutal play, and will be deadlier, whilst the Campaign mode is for longer, more traditional play, still brutal, if not deadly, but more survivable. However, until the publication of the Colonial Marines Operations Manual, a Campaign was something that the roleplaying game lacked. With its release, we got both a sourcebook on the history, organisation, and equipment of the United States Colonial Marine Corps, and a full blown, seven-part campaign for Alien: The Roleplaying Game. This is Frontier War, a horrifying campaign in which multiple factions vie for control of the biotechnology derived from the Xenomorphs. Frontier War consists of seven parts and combines Space Horror, Sci-Fi Action, and a Sense of Wonder, in a horrifically good, desperately deadly (but not too deadly), and epically grand military-conspiracy horror campaign.

Desert Moon of Karth

Joel Hines ($24/£18)

Desert Moon of Karth is a complete scenario for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game in a different vein for the Blue Collar Sci-Fi horror roleplaying game. It is a Space Western sandbox scenario inspired by Dune, Firefly, Alien, John Carter of Mars, Cowboy Bebop, and The Dark Tower. Located on the far edge of the galaxy, the Desert Moon of Karth is the only source of Coral Dust, the addictive powder harvested and ground from the bones of the ancient, almost mythic species known as the Wigoy. Thus there has been a ‘gold rush’ to Karth, plus its remoteness means that it has become a haven for criminals and the galaxy’s most wanted, all behind a world protected and blocked by a network of relic orbital satellites which shoot down all ships or flying objects—incoming or outgoing. The setting is built around ten locations of the sandbox and four factions, each with their own motivations and tasks for hire. Armed with an incredible set of inspiring tables, including the ever faithful, ‘What you find on the body’ table, the Game Master can support Desert Moon of Karth’s player-driven campaign as they and their characters—bounty hunters, on-the run criminals, prospectors, journalists wanting a story, and so on—explore the weirdness of this alien world. The rules-light Desert Moon of Karth is good not just for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, but is a great little toolkit and scenario for almost any Science Fiction roleplaying game.

RuneQuest Starter Set

Chaosium, Inc. ($29.99/£29.99)

If you thought the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set was good, then prepare to be amazed because the RuneQuest Starter Set is actually better. It uses the same format of rules, sample Player Characters, a solo scenario, and several scenarios you can play with your friends, plus dice, but there is more background content, fourteen ready-to-play Player Characters, a lengthy solo scenario, three lengthy scenarios to play with your friends, plus dice, play aids, and maps—maps that are gorgeously detailed in their depiction of Glorantha’s Sartar. Designed as an introduction to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest Starter Set provides the prospective Game Master and her players with everything needed to start playing in the mythic world of Glorantha and then keep playing for multiple sessions. All of which is presented in an easy-to-learn fashion with the rules in one booklet, the background in another, the solo adventure in a third, and three adventures in the fourth. Further, the adventures booklet includes the complete details and a lovely map of the city of Jonstown, the perfect starting base for the Player Characters and provide further background that will be enjoyed by the veteran players of the game. No starter set has been as comprehensive as the RuneQuest Starter Set, making it the perfect entry point for both Glorantha and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac 

The Merry Mushmen ($35/£25.99)

2021 saw the continued rise of the gaming magazine and the Old School Renaissance got its own with Knock!, of which two issues were released in 2021. It came crammed with content—polemics and treatises, ideas and suggestions, rules and rules, treasures, maps and monsters, adventures and Classes, and random tables and tables, followed by random tables in random tables! All of which is jam-packed into a vibrant-looking book. Primarily designed for use with Necrotic Gnome’s Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, the contents of Knock! are readily and easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice, making the magazine an incredible resource. It includes contributions from a wide array of the movement’s most influential writers, publishers, and commentators, some of the best entries being the ‘Dungeon Checklist’, ‘What Do Monsters Want?’, ‘300 Useless Magic Loot’, and ‘Borderlands’—the latter a surprisingly learned examination of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Fantastically presented, it was followed up by a second issue which had even more content and thus more ideas and support for your Old School Renaissance campaign.

The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity

MIT Press ($35/£30)

The author of Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games explores the first decade of the roleplaying hobby in search of the answer to the question, “What was the first roleplaying game?” Or rather, when did the wargame, Dungeons & Dragons, and the similar games which followed it, actually become roleplaying games? 

In doing so, he charts the debate over questions such as the role and impartiality of the Referee, the right way to create characters, character competency versus player competency, who should roll the dice—the Referee or the players, how much should the player know about the game’s mechanics, how should Alignment work and affect a character, and what is the point of play—to acquire Experience Points and become superhuman, to explore and tell a story, or a combination of the two? This is a fascinating account of the earliest days of the hobby and its fandom, capturing it for posterity.

Matrons of Mystery

Savage Spiel ($6.75/£5)

Inspired by the mystery stories of Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, and Father Brown, murder comes to your small cosy village and it is up to the ladies of a certain age to gather the clues, identify the culprit, and solve the murder! Based on Jason Cordova’s Brindlewood Bay, this storytelling roleplaying focuses entirely on the mystery. Using stripped down Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics, the matrons search for clues and chat with the suspects, each applying their own investigative style. Sometimes finding a clue is easy, but sometimes it comes with a complication or a condition, and when that happens, the Matrons can always have a ‘Nice Cup of Tea’ and so remove the condition. If the investigation gets really hairy and a Matron finds herself in trouble, she can always ‘Go to the Adverts’ and have everyone help resolve tense moment during the break! Once the Matrons have acquired enough clues, they can ‘Put It All Together’, make their accusation, and explain their deductions. The clever aspect of all of this is that every mystery comes with a potential set of suspects, complete with clues pointing towards their guilt, but no predetermined murderer. Who exactly committed the murder is all up to the Matrons of Mystery to deduce.

Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying

Osprey Games ($35/£25)

Inspired by both history and the epic myth cycles of the Ancient Near East—The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Gilgamesh—Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying takes place in Zaharets, the Land of Risings, a fantastic version of the Levant whose peoples have only recently risen up and over thrown the monstrously bestial kingdom of Barak Barad whose Taken enslaved humanity and staked their claim to the region by establishing cities at both ends of the War Road, the north-south route which helps ensure peace and prosperity. Yet dangers lurk beyond the road, dark secrets left over from Barak Barad, bandits raid the caravans on the road, and dark powers whisper promises of power to the ambitious. There is another danger—Jackals. Men and women who give up the safety of community and law and order to face the threats and mysteries which lie beyond the road. No good community would have truck with the Jackals. For who knows what evil, what chaos they might bring back with them? Yet Jackals keep the community safe when it cannot and some become Zaharets’ mightiest heroes, even leaders when they retire. This is an excellent set-up and makes for great community tension even as the Jackals give protection, and there is even a campaign available, Jackals: The Fall of the Children of Bronze.

Impossible Landscapes

Arc Dream Publishing ($64.99/£47.99)

The first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game pulls the Agents into a world of twisted apartments and improbable architecture before dumping them out again and then pulling them back in again decades later to twist the world around them in a paranoia-infused mystery that defies both answers and conception. When even reality cannot be trusted there is only each other to rely upon in this insidious investigation into madness and mayhem whose answers—if not the solution, may lie on the shores of Lake Carcosa. Will you answer the call of the Yellow King? Can you withstand his influence which seems to change the reality around you? And if you can, just who are you working for and can you trust each other? Impossible Landscapes is a truly disturbing and brilliantly weird campaign, as both a book and a campaign, and the latter is supported by some incredibly rich, detailed, and layered handouts—handouts that constantly raise questions more they provide answers. 

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium

Modiphius Entertainment ($63/£44.99)

Finally, after twenty years of waiting since the release of Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium and with the release of the new film, the hobby got the Dune roleplaying game it deserved. Dune: Adventures in the Imperium the player take on roles of members of one the noble Houses of the Imperium and must guide its fortunes through the conflicts, conspiracies, and connivances which play out just under the veneer of formality and civility that every House projects. How this is played out—espionage, political or diplomatic manoeuvring, forging alliances, black operations, and even open warfare are potentially useful tools if the result can elevate the House to an even greater status. In game terms, this is played at the level of the House itself as an organisation, but as Player Characters—Bene Gesserit, Mentats, Smugglers, Spy Masters, Sword Masters, and more—they will not be influenced by such decisions, but they have the potential to affect their outcome with the success or failure of individual missions. Dune: Adventures in the Imperium combines the simple mechanics of the 2d20 System with an incredible amount of background detail. This is fantastic gaming adaptation of a highly detailed and much revered setting, and a must for any gamer who is a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil

Goodman Games ($63/£79.99)

The sixth in the Original Adventures Reincarnated line from Goodman Games, this takes another classic scenario or campaign and combines high-quality scans from multiple printings of the original first edition adventure modules, commentary by gaming luminaries, and a complete adaptation of the original module for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition—and more. Coming as a two-book slipcase set, Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil takes us back to T1 The Village of Hommlet and T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil as the region around Hommlet is once again beset by bandits and monsters. Has the great evil, defeated many years ago, returned to prey upon lands hereabout? Of course it has! Beginning with a classic village imperiled by evil—indeed, T1 The Village of Hommlet was one of the first villages to be so imperiled—brave adventurers will gather clues and investigate, eventually venturing into the Temple of Elemental Evil itself and delving deep into the complex below where it is said the evil still lies undefeated. Not just a great reproduction, Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil is an expansion too into a complete mega-dungeon and mini-campaign designed for First Level through to Seventh Level. Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil can be played through as of old, but the new addition brings new mysteries and encounters which will enhance the nostalgia.

The Company of the Dragon

Chaosium, Inc. ($74.95/£55.49)

Last year, the Jonstown Compendium, the community content programme for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, gave us a great starting campaign with Six Seasons in Sartar. Now the author of that campaign returns with an even bigger campaign, one that can be run as a standalone, but really works best as a sequel to Six Seasons in Sartar. In The Company of the Dragon the Player Characters must guide the survivors of their clan as they are forced to go on the run from the Lunar Empire. As they do, they must build and maintain their own community, to create their own myth, and ultimately, as they become involved in some of the major events leading up and including the Dragonrise, have them forge their own destiny. Superbly supported with tools, advice, and discussion, as well as numerous episodes to run, The Company of the Dragon is exactly what both the campaign and the sequel that Six Seasons in Sartar needed, as well as being a great prequel to the events of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the forthcoming Sartar Campaign.

A Holiday Horror Quartet

Imagine growing up in Lovecraft Country? What sights and hints of the Cthulhu Mythos might the children of that benighted corner of New England been exposed to, growing up as they have in or near its darker and more mystical corners—Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport? Since being coined by the late Keith Herber, the setting has been more widely explored in supplements for Call of Cthulhu, such as Arkham Unveiled and Tales of the Miskatonic Valley during the nineties, and relatively recently in New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and More Adventures in Arkham Country in the noughties. The point of view for all of these is always that of the Investigator core to Call of Cthulhu, but the very latest campaign to explore the region does so from the point of view of children, who perhaps suspect that the world around them is perhaps a little stranger than some of the adults around them would know or even admit, and in investigating that strangeness, may lay groundwork for their becoming fully fledged Investigators as adults. This is the set-up for The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection, a campaign which takes place over the course of a single year in New England, at four family get togethers, that will see cousins come together to discover dark secrets about their family and truths about the world around them, and confront mysteries and the Mythos, wonders and magic, horrors and truth, ultimately to form friendships which will last long into adulthood.

The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection from Golden Goblin Press, best known for titles such as An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity, The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome, and Tales of the Crescent City: Adventures in Jazz Era New Orleans. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is a campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, which is set in New England in 1925 and 1926 and which requires the players to take the roles of six eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-old children. They each live and have relatives in the towns of Arkham, Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport, and during the course of the year will spend Halloween in Dunwich, Christmas in Kingsport, Easter in Arkham, and Independence day in Innsmouth. The campaign consists of ‘Halloween in Dunwich’, ‘Christmas in Kingsport’, ‘Easter in Arkham’, and ‘Innsmouth Independence Day’. Of the four lengthy scenarios, the first two are not new. ‘Halloween in Dunwich’ originally appeared in the Miskatonic University Library Association monograph, Halloween Horror, one of the winners of Chaosium, Inc.’s 2005 Halloween Adventure contest, whilst its sequel, ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ appeared in the 2006 eponymous Miskatonic University Library Association monograph, Christmas in Kingsport, following Chaosium, Inc.’s Holiday Season Adventure Contest. For the Keeper who has access to them, the following supplements will be useful in adding colour and detail to each of the four scenarios in The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection. These are Return to Dunwich, Kingsport: The City In The Mists, Arkham Unveiled, and Escape from Innsmouth, as well as Miskatonic University, but whilst they can be a source of colour and detail, none of them are necessary to run the scenarios in the campaign.

Interest in combining horror and playing children in roleplaying games has picked up in the last decade, with television series like Stranger Things and roleplaying games like Kids on Bikes and Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was. For Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, scenarios like The Dare and The Haunted Clubhouse have explored the more modern periods, but The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection predates them all—not only in the genesis of the four scenarios in the anthology, but also in the period they are set. Further, as much as the players are called upon to roleplay children in the campaign, they will be confronted with elements of the Cthulhu Mythos and cosmic horror as well as horrific elements of the mundane world, including racism, prejudice, child abuse, bullying, and worse. Whilst none of these elements are specifically aimed at the Investigators the players will be roleplaying, they are present in several of the scenarios and they are likely to witness them. Consequently, many of the scenarios do carry warnings and both they and the pre-generated Investigators are designed to be played by mature players.

The six pre-generated Investigators consist of Donald Sutton, Gertrude ‘Gerdie’ Constance Pope, Gordon Brewster, Edward Derby, George Weedon, and Alice Sanders. Donald Sutton, the son of Kingsport artists and gallery owners, is a sensitive artist who is also friends with a ghost; Gertrude ‘Gerdie’ Constance Pope is from Dunwich and has strange white hair and ice blue eyes and has the gift of knowing things she should not, but does not know who her parents are; Gordon Brewster is also from Dunwich, a sturdy and hardworking farm boy who knows that the local hills are home to strange things; the studious and intelligent Edward Derby lives just off campus from Miskatonic University in Arkham, and has managed to read the strange books his father left him; George Weedon, also from Arkham, is athletic and principled; and the oldest cousin, Alice Sanders is a resident of Innsmouth, sturdy and stocky, but with keen mind and a slightly devious streak. All six are given full Investigator sheets and more—the more of which comes at the end of the book.

The campaign opens with ‘Halloween in Dunwich’. As members of the extended Morgan family, the cousins and their parents or guardians are invited to spend Halloween at the farm of the family patriarch, Great-Grandpa Silas. As the adults gather and catch up with the family gossip and rumours—some of which the Investigators have an opportunity to overhear and presages plots and events to come in the rest of the campaign’s scenarios—Great-Grandpa Silas takes the children away for a day of activities, games, and competitions. These include apple picking, pumpkin harvesting and carving, singalongs, and more, ending with a family feast and ghost tales round the fire. These activities serve functions in and out of the game. They get the Investigators to interact with each other and with their family, to begin forging relationships with each other in play rather than simply as written. They also serve to get the players rolling dice and have their Investigators be active and gain Experience Checks so that they are more skilled as the campaign progresses, and they also show how children’s lives can be fun, especially in a period where the fun was not so technologically sophisticated to what it is today. This is a device which the author pulls again and again as the campaign progresses, but each time the setting is different, the family dynamics are different, and the activities are different.

The activities also establish a very nicely balanced contrast between the mundane and the Mythos, again a device which will be used in all four scenarios. Of course, when it comes, the Mythos is no less horrifying than you would expect. One of the old family ghost stories told round the fire proves to have more than a ring of truth to it as a vengeful spirit returns from the family’s past to enact a ghastly plan. The adolescent Investigators are the only ones capable of defending their family against the predations of this spirit, and must fight through a swarm of Halloween-themed threats to confront the evil spirit and put an end to its dread ambitions.

If the Investigators looked forward to spending time with Great-Grandpa Silas in Dunwich, they are resigned to spending ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ at the home of their joyless Great Aunt Nora. She expects children to be ‘seen and not heard’, so there is little likelihood of any laughter or fun. Fortunately, Aunt Nora’s ward, the Investigators’ beloved older cousin Melba, a carefree flapper and black sheep of the family, comes to their rescue. She sneaks them out of the house and takes them on a guided tour of Kingsport—sledding, visiting friends, feeding cats, snowball fights, and more. There is something delightfully picaresque about this day out and despite her reputation as the black sheep of the family, Melba is a very positive character who likely reminds both the players and the Keeper of someone in their own family and childhood. Unfortunately, the joie de vivre of the cousins’ grand day out comes to a crashing halt when they are discovered and then the opprobrium heaped upon them and their cousin, Melba, is upstaged by the arrival of their uncle, who has returned from Europe with his new wife. Who is German, no less! Which all threatens to sour Christmas even more.

However, ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ takes a stranger and more wondrous turn when cousin Melba leads the Investigators Beyond the Walls of Sleep and into the Dreamlands. This strange realm of sleep and dreams has always been portrayed as strange and weird, but ‘Christmas in Kingsport’ focuses on the magic and the joy of exploring a mythical, almost Narnia-like, realm. Having made their day in the mundane world, Melba makes the Investigators’ sleep a magical holiday adventure, but it suddenly takes a scary turn when a party in their honour is literally crashed by Christmas demons! Captured, they must find out by whom and why, using clues they have learned in both the waking and the dreaming world—the Investigators will definitely need to listen, and hopefully solve the mystery before they wake up on Christmas morning. Ultimately, there is a great deal at stake in ‘Christmas in Kingsport’, but it is a wonderfully entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable scenario.

The third scenario, ‘Easter in Arkham’, is darker in tone and pulls the Investigators deeper into the Mythos and the secrets of Arkham. Staying at the homes of both Edward Derby and George Weedon, the Investigators have a lot of freedom to visit some of their favourite places in the town and get up to a lot. These include going to the cinema to see films such as The Thief of Bagdad or The Gold Rush, getting ice cream, visiting the penny arcade, bicycling, and more. Chief amongst these though, is attending and even participating in the Miskatonic University Easter Parade, there being opportunities for the Investigators to bake goods, paint Easter eggs, and make Easter bonnets, as well as enter their associated competitions. The pleasure of these activities is first interrupted by strange rumours of missing pets, evil lunch ladies, swarms of killer rats, and worse, and then fraught encounters with one of Edward Derby and George Weedon’s classmates playing truant and a horrid attack by one of the animals in the petting zoo at the Easter Parade. Investigation will reveal that recently departed pets have been returning to their owners, but changed, tainted, and unstable, which for Call of Cthulhu veterans can only point to one cause—and they would be right! However, the Investigators do not know that and getting to that cause will entail dealing with terribly afflicted animals, making friends with a gang of would-be members of the feared O’Bannion mob each of their own age, and negotiating with a figure out of witch-haunted Arkham’s past in a very nicely judged and staged encounter.

The fourth and last scenario in The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is ‘Innsmouth Independence Day’. Almost like the film Jaws, the Investigators get to spend and celebrate the Fourth of July on the New England coast, but this takes place on Haven Cove, an island opposite the harbour of Innsmouth, the most shunned and reviled towns in New England. This is a chance for the Innsmouth side of the Morgan family to meet the rest of the family, and vice versa, and do so on neutral ground, just sufficiently far away from the mildewed and mouldering seaport and its strangely inbred and evolving inhabitants, to gain the grudging acceptance of the High Council of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. However, one of the Investigators, Alice Sanders, a resident of Innsmouth has a plan. Once all of the competitions—swimming, sailing, fishing, sandcastle building, and more—are out of the way, she wants to sneak off the island and into Innsmouth and locate her family records. There are elements of The Shadow Over Innsmouth here, but the Investigators are sneaking in as well as sneaking out, and whilst there are plenty of watchful eyes who will alert the authorities to their presence, the Investigators can find allies too—and make friends. ‘Innsmouth Independence Day’ culminates in some quite nasty confrontations with some family secrets and truths, and whilst the protagonists are children, the scenario does not shy away from the sometimes brutal and inhuman way of life in Innsmouth.

Almost the last fifth of The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is dedicated to Investigators sheets for the six children at the heart of the campaign. This is fifty pages long, which is somewhat unnecessarily over the top given the size of the cast. However, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection does not just give Investigator sheets for the six children for the four scenarios in the campaign, but for later in their lives as well. The first set take the sextet into their early twenties, whilst the second presents them as Investigators for use with Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos. Hopefully, their inclusion will see the Investigators who have come of age and aware of the Mythos during the events of The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection return again to conduct further investigations.

In terms of staging the four scenarios in The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection, the Keeper will need to do some preparation. Primarily this will be to create the various adult members of the family in addition to those mentioned in the text. In terms of running the scenarios, the Keeper is encouraged to have his players spend Luck as needed on their Investigator’s tasks and actions, and in return be generous with restored Luck between adventures. In terms of staging the scenarios and the campaign there are, nevertheless, a number of issues with the campaign. First, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection really only works with the full six players. Second, the scenarios are linear in places, though this is offset by the fact that there is a lot for the Investigators to do throughout, both in the linear sequences and in the sequences where they have greater freedom of action. Third, the campaign negates the parents and guardians of the Investigators. They are named, but they are never really developed and it would have been useful if the Keeper had been given some roleplaying notes about both how to roleplay them and how each of them feels about the Investigators.

Physically, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is very well presented. In contrast to most releases for Call of Cthulhu, there is a sense of warmth to the book and a vibrancy to its illustrations. Many of these are taken from period festival illustrations of the day, whilst the illustrations of the Investigators have a suitably slight cartoonish feel to them that enhances the childhood sensibilities of the campaign. Not all of the illustrations quite match the text, but that is a minor issue. 

As a piece of writing for a roleplaying game, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is simply an entertaining read. There are moments of tragedy and joy and outright humour in the writing and it is easy to see that the author is actually enjoying himself in writing the four scenarios in the campaign. As a campaign, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is linear in places and it does demand all six players, but it captures the feel of being a child again and pulls the players into roleplaying children again with all of its fun and disappointment and excitement and frustration of dealing with adults—and it does this without being patronising or belittling any one of them. It also brings alive a sense of family, with its gossip and secrets and difficulties. All of which will be familiar to so many players and Keepers from their own childhoods. As individual scenarios, The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection adeptly contrasts the mundane with the Mythos, whilst giving time for the Investigators to be children and revealing step by step some of the darker secrets about the world around them.

Golden Goblin Press has a well-deserved reputation for publishing excellent anthologies and campaigns for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is the exception. The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection is a superb piece of writing, which in capturing our childhoods and taking a new, fresh angle to Lovecraft Country, brings charm to Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. The late, much missed Keith ‘Doc’ Herber would have been proud.

Reviews from R'lyeh Post-Christmas Dozen 2020

Since 2001, Reviews from R’lyeh have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction.com before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual (Post-)Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you did not have and someone was happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you. If not, then this is a list of what would have been good under that tree and what you should purchase yourself to read and play in the months to come.

—oOo—

Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e

Arcanist Press ($24.95/£18.50)

There can be no doubt that 2020 has been a fractious year and a year in which no subject matter has been more contentious than that of Race. So it was inevitable that questions about ‘Race’ and the stereotypes that the concept of ‘Race’ in roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons enforces would be asked. Does a Gnome always live the forest and have an affinity for illusion magic? Does a Dwarf always have a beard, hate Goblins, and be trained as a smith, stonemason, or brewer? Why are there only Half-Orcs and Half-Elves? On the one hand, the answer is ‘yes’, because that is the way that it has always been—and in your Dungeons & Dragons campaign, there is nothing wrong in keeping it that way. On the other hand, the answer is a firm ‘no’. If you want your half-Orc to grow up amongst Halflings and have led a gentler life, or your character to have an Elf father and a Tielfling mother, than that is equally as acceptable. Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e is a supplement which explores and addresses the issue of ‘Race’ in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, providing options for you to create and play the types of characters that not only break the mold set by almost fifty years of Dungeons & Dragons history, but are the types of character you want to play.

Alien The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set

Free League Publishing ($54.50/£39.99)

Few starter sets for any roleplaying game come as packed as that for Alien The Roleplaying Game, the ‘Blue Collar’ Science Fiction-Horror roleplaying based on the films Alien, Aliens, and more. A rulebook, a complete scenario in ‘Chariot of the Gods’, a full-colour double-sided map showing charted space and starship plans, plus reference cards and counters, everything necessary to play a game of existential dread and horror in the isolation of deep space, all complicated by the personal agendas of the crew. Not only is the Alien The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set well appointed, it is superbly illustrated, in turns creepy and horrifying, and its mechanics—a variant of Free League Publishing’s Year Zero system—are designed to drive Player Character Stress up and up, first into hypercompetence, and then into panic and dread. Panic and dread that can spread and escalate… Lastly, the Alien The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set can be used to run Destroyer of Worlds, a scenario involving the Colonial Marines.

Six Seasons in Sartar: A Campaign for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

Chaoisum, Inc. ($39.95/£29.99)

2020 was a great for the Jonstown Compendium, Chaosium, Inc.’s community content programme for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and other roleplaying games set in Glorantha. One of the best is Six Seasons in Sartar: A Campaign for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, a complete introductory campaign set in Glorantha designed to take characters from children through initiation and into their first few seasons as adults among an isolated clan in Sartar. It is also a complete description of this clan and the Player Characters’ place in it, an initiation for the Player Characters, their players, and the Game Master into the mysteries of Glorantha, and more. Fundamentally though, it is a campaign which takes the players and their characters step-by-step into the setting of Glorantha before forcing them into a confrontation with events from wider world beyond their vale. Six Seasons in Sartar: A Campaign for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is a fantastic introduction to a fantastic world, one of the first titles a prospective Game Master of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha should purchase from the Jonstown Compendium.

FATE of Cthulhu

Evil Hat Games ($39.99/£29.99)

The influence of the Cthulhu mythos continues to ripple through the gaming hobby to spread and warp the options available when it comes to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. When it reached FATE Core, it did something completely different. It combined the Cthulhu Mythos with a ‘going back in time to save the world’ plot a la The Terminator not once, not twice, but five times! In FATE of Cthulhu, the End Times have come about and the survivors have made sacrifices to Yog-Sothoth to be able to go back before the disaster which befell humanity and perhaps foil its most twisted members in their attempt to welcome their inhuman masters back into the world. Whether it is Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, or the King in Yellow, FATE of Cthulhu includes five timelines—or campaigns—which the investigators must go back to and disrupt the five events of which lead up to each of the Old One’s calamitous appearance, in the process facing not just the sanity-draining revelations of the true nature of the cosmos and mankind’s place in it, but also the potentially, physically corruptive effect of being exposed to it. FATE of Cthulhu is a more action-orientated, more direct, and more upfront about its confrontation with the forces of the Mythos and all the more refreshing for it.

Cyberpunk RED

R. Talsorian Games Inc. ($60/£45)

Forty years after the publication of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., the classic Cyberpunk roleplaying game returns in the form of Cyberpunk RED, set three decades before the computer roleplaying game, Cyberpunk 2077, also released this year. As well as improving and streamlining the mechanics—still familiar from the previous editions of the game—Cyberpunk RED pushes the timeline on two decades, into a post-mega-corp future where nation states are pushing back against rampant corporate influence, but the world, and the punk on the street, still has to deal with the fallout (sometimes literally)  from the Fourth Corporate War. Solos still provide jacked up, cybered muscle and cyber-eye targeting handguns to bring force and leverage to a situation, Media reports and now ‘makes’ the (fake) news, Execs represent cooperate interests, and Netrunners jack in and hack the post-NET world to steal data, sabotage, monitor, and more. Cyberpunk RED provides background, cyberware, streamlined and updated rules, solid advice on running the game and game types, and more to run a campaign on the edge, in a book which will look as good on the coffee table as on your shelf.

MÖRK BORG Artpunk RPG

Free League Publishing ($39.99/£27.99)

Stripped back to a stark brutalism, MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance. At the end of the world, there is one last dark age before all of the miseries come to pass as predicted by The Two-Headed Basilisks in which Fanged Deserters, Gutterborn Scum, Esoteric Hermits, Heretical Priests, Occult Herbmasters, and Wretched Royalty pick over the last remnants of civilisation on an island surrounded by an icy sea and as rotten as they are, make last grasps at heroism and their humanity, undertaking strange missions and tasks from the high and mighty, from The Two-Headed Basilisks’ gothic cathedral in Galgenbeck and Blood-countess Anthelia’s limestone palace, to the fields of death in Graven-Tosk and the barren wastes of Kergüs. From the doomed setting to the ultra-light mechanics, all of MÖRK BORG is wrapped up in vibrant washes of neon colour, splashes of sticky red blood, and stabs of polished silver, in what is an anguished scream of a game.

An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity is a Call of Cthulhu

Golden Goblin Press ($35/£25.99)

Like the superlative Harlem Unbound: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and Gumshoe Roleplaying Games—arguably the best supplement of 2017—before it, An Inner Darkness is a supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition which explores the darker side human history during the Jazz Age. Thus, the anthology’s subject matters include child exploitation, sexual assault, mob violence, nativism, religious persecution, and racial discrimination, which is why it carries a Reader Advisory and that despite the fact that it also deals with cosmic horror which can drive the Investigators mad. This is an undeniably an adult, or at least a mature, gamer’s book and is unflinching in its treatment of its subject matters. Never more so that in ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ which draws parallels between the treatment of immigrants now and then, ‘A Family Way’ which forces the investigators to confront the terrible consequences of sexual assault, and in ‘Fire Without Light’ that explores the aftermath of the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921. All six scenarios are uncomfortable to both run and play, forcing Keeper and player alike to confront the horror of our actual history as well as the horror of the Mythos. They should be no less memorable for either the history or the horror.

Mausritter*

Games Omnivorous ($25/£20)

Mausritter is a little game about little heroes in a big world. In this rules-light fantasy adventure role-playing game, each player character is a brave mouse adventurer, faced with a dangerous world in which there is threat to mouse-kind under every log and in every bush. Rush nose-first into every situation, and a mouse is sure to come to a short, but nasty end. By being clever and brave and lucky, a mouse can overcome the dangers the world presents to him, find a solution to the problem threatening his community, and perhaps become a hero in doing so. Mausritter is fast to set-up and fast to play—all too fast if a mouse is foolish, or just plain unlucky—and presents a world we recognise from above, which become a big challenge from below when faced at mouse scale. As well as simple mechanics, Mausritter employs an innovative inventory system which streamlines what and how many things a mouse is carrying and brings a clever mechanical effect into play when a mouse suffers from conditions such as Hungry or Injured. The Mausritter book also includes an adventure location to explore and a mouse kingdom base a campaign in. All wrapped up in a totally charming little book.

* (In the interests of transparency, I did edit the new edition of Mausritter.)

Valley of Plenty

Chaosium, Inc./Troupe Games ($35/£25.99)

2020 was a great for the Jonstown Compendium, Chaosium, Inc.’s community content programme for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and other roleplaying games set in Glorantha. One of the best is Six Seasons in Sartar: A Campaign for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, a complete introductory campaign set in Glorantha designed to take characters from children through initiation and into their first few seasons as adults among an isolated clan in Sartar. However, the Jonstown Compendium was so good that it did it all over again with Valley of Plenty, a starter campaign not for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but for QuestWorlds (previously known as  and compatible with HeroQuest: Glorantha), but very much still set in Sartar. The first part of The Jaldonkillers Saga, which will take the player characters from the idyll of their childhood through the sundering of their tribe and beyond to its reconstitution in exile and then the efforts made to retake both their tribe’s lands and glory. Use of the QuestWorlds mechanics enables the campaign to narratively scaled to the characters and the campaign is very well supported in terms of its background and setting. This is another great introduction to roleplaying in Glorantha, which takes both players and their characters step-by-step into the setting, its mythology, and drama.

Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps

Gale Fore Nine, LLC ($60/£44.99)

Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps—or just another bug hunt—puts the players in command of Vasquez, Hicks, Ripley, and others, colonial marines or civilians as they land on and then investigate the strangely empty facility of Hadley’s Hope, looking for survivors, and answers… All too quickly they find out what happened as swarms of relentless monsters from hell which capture you for who knows what reason, have acid for blood, and if not capturing you, then ripping you apart, erupt from the walls and swarm towards you. The colonial marines are trained for anything, but not this and they had better keep their cool and stay frosty in this tense, co-operative, tactical standoff against an implacable, alien foe. The players work together against the board, whether on a bug hunt, or one of several missions which form a campaign. Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps is richly appointed with reversable maps, character cards for members of the Aliens cast, equipment, and more, including miniatures for Ripley, Newt, five of the colonial marines, and xenomorphs. Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps brings the science fiction-horror of Aliens to the table and lets you play out the tense standoff and cat and mouse action horror of the film.

Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying

Free League Publishing ($55/£39.99)

Based on the work of Swedish illustrator and author Johan Egerkrans, Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying takes you into a dark Gothic setting of the nineteenth century, one steeped in Nordic folklore and old myths of Scandinavia. Long have the vaesen—familiars, nature spirits, shapeshifters, spirits of the dead, and other monsters lived quietly alongside mankind, for mankind knew their ways and the vaesen understood ours, but as the century wanes, the Mythic North is changing. The young are moving to the cities, the cities are industrialising, and the old ways are being forgotten, but not by the vaesen—and they are becoming unruly and dangerous. As members of the newly refounded The Society, the player characters have the gift of the Sight, able to see the vaesen and despite all possessing their own dark secrets have decided to band together and protect mankind against the threat posed by the vaesen. Whatever mystery presents itself to them, whatever horror or suspense they must suffer, the player characters must find a solution to the disruption caused by the vaesen, a solution that requires means other than brute force. Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying is a beautiful game, oozing atmosphere and hiding secrets for the player characters to discover, secrets forgotten in this very modern, industrial age.

Dissident Whispers

The Whisper Collective/Tuesday Night Games ($30/£25)

Dissident Whispers is an anthology of fifty-eight two-page adventures for roleplaying games as diverse as Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons, The Black Hack, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Electric Bastionland, Mausritter, MÖRK BORG, Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, Trophy Gold, Troika!, The Ultraviolet Grasslands, and more, including many systems neutral adventures. It has been put together by an international and diverse range of authors, designers, editors, and illustrators. So it includes ‘Graktil – The Citadel that Crawls’,  a hallowed scorpion corpse turned mobile goblin fortress; ‘Snake Temple Abduction’, the partly flooded dungeon home to a medusa queen; and ‘Necropolis of Pashtep’, an Aztec-themed puzzle dungeon. For the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, ‘Hideo’s World’ turns the player characters virtual, whilst ‘Flails Akimbo’ for MÖRK BORG has the player character wake up with their weapons nailed to their hands, and… There is so much to dig into in Dissident Whispers, in truth not all of it necessarily the best quality. However, there are plenty of adventures here that are worth the price of admission and of the adventures that are not worth that, there are many here that are worth rescuing or plundering for ideas. Last and best of all, every purchase of Dissident Whispers goes towards the support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

A Sex Horrificam II

Fronti Nulla Fides—or ‘there is no trusting appearances’—is an anthology of six scenarios for The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome using Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published by Golden Goblin Press, this setting presents new challenges in investigating and confronting the Mythos in Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, shorn of its reliance upon libraries, newspaper archives, and Mythos tomes, instead requiring the investigators to ask others lots and lots of questions, do an awful lot of watching, and sneak about a fair bit. In other words, more detective legwork rather than research. Similarly, the reliance upon firearms found in conducting investigations in the Jazz Age of the 1920s, makes such investigations and confrontations with the Mythos more fraught affairs. The sextet in Fronti Nulla Fides see the investigators conducting a raid on a house of tinkers, a rescue mission to a city of white apes, a terrible sea journey, and in turn, hunts for a slave, a dragon, and a barbarian.

The anthology opens with ‘The Clockwork Oracle’, the first of three contributions by  publisher Oscar Rios. This is set in Corinth in Greece—though it could easily be moved to another city—and has the Investigators hired by a trio of brothers and sisters whose father has become obsessed with mechanisms and clockwork devices, in particular, a mechanical jay known as The Clockwork Oracle, which he believes can tell the future. This obsession has grown to the point that he is spending much of his wealth upon them, has allowed a gifted tinker to move into his home, and when confronted by his children, threw them out of the house. Amongst other things, siblings want the tinker removed from the house, their father separated from The Clockwork Oracle, both him and the household slaves kept safe, their family’s financial records secured, and more. Of these other objectives, each of the siblings has his or own objective and the scenario divides them between the Investigators, so adding a slight divisive element when it comes to the scenario’s set piece. Oddly, the biggest challenge in the scenario for the Keeper is portraying the squabbling siblings as they talk across each other, but otherwise this a short and straightforward scenario that provides an opportunity for the Investigators to conduct some classic detective work before the scenario’s grand set piece—the raid on the house. Here the scenario is almost Dungeons & Dragons-like, with much more of an emphasis on stealth and combat in comparison to scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, but this should make for a fun change of pace. The scenario also has numerous different aspects to its outcome which will need to be worked through, depending upon how successful the Investigators have been. Overall, ‘The Clockwork Oracle’ has a two-fisted muscularity to it, but still packs in plenty of story.

Jeffrey Moeller’s ‘Goddess of the White Apes’ is a sequel to his ‘The Vetting of Marius Asina’ from De Horrore Cosmico. ‘The Vetting of Marius Asina’ is an interpretation of ‘Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and his Family’ in which the Investigators look into the background of Marius Asina to determine if he is suitable for elevation beyond his current rank of senator. Of course, he was not, since neither Marius Asina nor his family turned out to human, let alone barely Roman citizens! ‘Goddess of the White Apes’ leans into the pulpiness of the ‘Swords & Sandals’ genre, but combines it with weird miscegenation and horror, as the Investigators are directed to rescue from the nephew of the emperor from a city to the far south beyond the furthest reaches of the empire. There they find a city which is rapidly coming to ape Rome itself as the leader of the White Apes attempts to make both their home and their society more ‘civilised’! Here the Investigators—after the travails of their long journey south (though a means of cutting the journey time is explored)—must deal with a leader more capricious than a Roman Emperor and effect an escape. The set-up of ‘Goddess of the White Apes’ allows it to be run as a standalone scenario, but it works better as a sequel to ‘The Vetting of Marius Asina’.

Whether as crew or passengers, the Investigators find themselves in peril at sea in Charles Gerard’s ‘Following Seas’. As they sail aboard the Minerva from Antioch in Syria Palestina to Ostia, the port which serves Rome, the ship’s captain veers between depression and irrationality, his mood and actions upsetting the crew as strange energies are seen to swirl about the ship’s rigging. Both investigation and action will take place aboard the Minerva in what is classic, ‘ship in a bottle’ scenario, one that quickly pushes its narrative to an action-packed dénouement. Along the way, there is room for unsettling flashbacks, either ones which have happened in earlier encounters with the Mythos or ones which each player can create for their Investigator on the spot. ‘Following Seas’ is a decent scenario, one which is easily run as the Investigators are travelling between locations—perhaps in a campaign, perhaps between other scenarios, and which can easily be transferred to times and locations which involve sailing ships and sea voyages.

Oscar Rios’ second scenario is ‘Manumission’, in which Rome’s practice of slavery is put to a vile purpose. A vigilis—the equivalent of the police in the Roman Empire, comes to the Investigators for their help. In fact, he comes to them for their help because they owe him a favour or two, so ‘Manumission’ works best later in a campaign when the Investigators who have had a run in with the authorities. The vigilis wants them to help a friend of his whose nephew has been sold into slavery by his drunkard father. Quick investigation reveals that the boy has already been sold and the buyer is not prepared to sell him back. In order to rescue the boy, the Investigators will have to follow the seller and perhaps steal him back. However, in the process, they will discover why the boy was sold and that adds a degree of urgency to the rescue attempt. This is a solid piece of nastiness, nicely set up and waiting for the Investigator to do the right thing.

‘The Dragon of Cambria’ by William Adcock takes the Investigators to the west of Britannia and into Wales where a rich lead mine has unleashed a dragon! This is a classic monster hunt in Dungeons & Dragons-style, but one scaled to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, which means that the Investigators are likely to be snapped up in a straight fight between themselves and the creature. They will have to use their guile and planning to defeat the creature, though their efforts are likely to be hindered by rival hunters and locals interpreting the appearance of the dragon as heralding a rebellion against the Roman authorities.

Lastly, Oscar Rios’ third scenario takes the Investigators to the province of Germania Superior and beyond! In ‘The Blood Sword of Emeric’, a German tribal leader has risen in rebellion and is attacking locals and Romans alike, but is said to have a blood red sword capable of killing at a single cut and slicing through chainmail. Whether as agents employed by a merchant to recover a missing shipment, the head of a local fort beset by refugees wanting someone to bring him the head of Emeric, or even as agents of an occult society interested in rumours of the sword, the Investigators will need to get what information they can from the refugees, find a guide, and strike out beyond the frontier. The scenario is again quite straightforward and quite action orientated, but it does a nice bait and switch on the Investigators—not once, but twice!

Physically, Fronti Nulla Fides is well presented and edited. Each scenario begins with a full list of its NPCs and each scenario’s maps are generally good, and the illustrations, although having a slightly cartoonish feel to them, are excellent throughout.

Each of the six scenarios in Fronti Nulla Fides should take no longer than a session or two to play, each is different, and even despite their being quite short, time is taken to explore the possible outcomes and ramifications of each. Their length also makes them easy to fit into an ongoing campaign, either between longer, more involved scenarios or chapters of an actual campaign. They also provide a decent amount of physical and interpersonal investigation, showcasing just how rare it is that Lovecraftian investigating roleplaying at the height of the Roman Empire rarely involves visits to libraries or poring over Mythos tomes. Overall, Fronti Nulla Fides not only lives up to its title, but also provides the Keeper of a Cthulhu Invictus campaign with a set of six short, but enjoyably action-orientated and punchy scenarios.

The Horror of Humanity

An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity is a Call of Cthulhu book with a difference. Published by Golden Goblin Press following a successful Kickstarter campaign, An Inner Darkness is an anthology of six scenarios for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition which explores where the all too human horrors of the Jazz Age and Desperate Decade intersect with the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. In six scenarios it deals with issues not normally explored or addressed in Call of Cthulhu—child labour and exploitation, the poor treatment suffered by veterans of the Great War in the subsequent decade, sexual assault, mob violence, and nativism and religious persecution and racial discrimination. None of these are easy subjects to deal with and for this reason An Inner Darkness comes with a Reader Advisory warning the reader that it contains Mature Content. What this also means is that An Inner Darkness is not necessarily a book for every Call of Cthulhu devotee or group—and that is fine. Just like the superlative Harlem Unbound from 2017, An Inner Darkness deserves to have a place on our gaming shelves, for if it is not to your tastes, then it is to someone else’s.

From the start it should be made clear that being an anthology of scenarios for a roleplaying game, the Reader Advisory on An Inner Darkness is all the more pertinent and all the more potent. This is entirely because of the nature of roleplaying itself. Neither the Keeper nor her players will be sat comfortably watching, reading, or listening to the content subject to the Reader Advisory. Instead, as players they will be roleplaying characters interacting with horrible situations and persons with points of view and opinion which though regarded as reprehensible today, would have been seen as the norm in the period in which the six scenarios in An Inner Darkness are set. Further, the Keeper has the unpleasant task of describing these situations and roleplaying the men and women who hold to such outlooks and opinions. Here is perhaps the one major issue with An Inner Darkness, that there is little in the way of advice for the Keeper in portraying these NPCs.

To get the very fullest of these scenarios the Keeper may want to have access to several other supplements. These include H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, Secrets of New York, H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham, and Secrets of Los Angeles. Note that none of these supplements are necessary to run the scenarios in An Inner Darkness, but they may be useful.

An Inner Darkness opens with ‘Dreams of Silk’ by Christopher Smith Adair. This takes place in Brights Mill, Pennsylvania in 1922 and explores the darker side of child labour during the period, including unsafe conditions, dangerous materials, and a lack of concern for worker safety. Children of poor and working-class families were often expected to work as it brought much needed income for their families and there were fewer regulations and protections governing their working conditions. The investigators are asked by a representative of the Women’s Trade Union League to help investigate Hempstead Chemicals, a local manufacturer of cosmetics. Several of the child employees have fallen sick or even died after terrible accidents. Ultimately, the factory becomes the focus of the investigators’ attention, a nicely creepy environment, listless during the day, weird at night. The scenario also dovetails into The Dreamlands, though only in minor way. Here the Mythos is used to exacerbate the situation, though Humans are ultimately responsible for the situation. Pleasingly, the scenario also directly addresses the problems which occur should the investigators decide to burn the factory down, as well as possible consequences.

Brian M. Sammons’ ‘When This Lousy War is Over’ is about the conditions and experience of veterans, in particular, severely injured veterans—mentally and physically, returning from the Great War. Without easily available medical and psychiatric treatment or veterans’ services, the veterans have to rely on each other. Despite this, some are unable to cope back in ordinary society, and this lies at the heart of the scenario. Set in Arkham, Massachusetts, it begins with the investigators learning that a friend of theirs, a veteran of the Great War, has been found murdered. It quickly becomes apparent that the victim had no enemies and beyond his membership of the local outpost of the Veterans of Foreign Wars association, was an ordinary member of society. So who killed him? This feels very much like a traditional investigative scenario, but it examines the tensions between the members of Veterans of Foreign Wars and local society, how they are tolerated, but only up to a point. Of all the scenarios in the anthology, this is perhaps the most muscular in tone and likely to end in a stand-up fight.

The third scenario, Jeffrey Moeller’s ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ is the first one where the Reader Advisory for An Inner Darkness is really applicable and the first one to really make the Keeper and her players uncomfortable. It is set outside Los Angeles in 1931 and is the first of two scenarios in the anthology to deal with nativism—the promotion and protection of the interests of native-born or established inhabitants against those of immigrants. During the nineteen twenties and thirties the target of nativism in California were Mexican immigrants, which was only exacerbated by the onset of the Great Depression. ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ takes place in an actual location, the Elysian Park tramp stockade where ethnic Mexicans—whether immigrants or actual American citizens—are forcibly held until they agree to be extradited. The conditions are appalling as more and more Mexicans are rounded up and incarcerated, the guards openly racist, and the charity providing aid and food to the stockade barely so. As journalists, social activists, police officers, and so on, the investigators get called into the stockade when a young girl goes missing from within its confines. Now of course the Mythos is involved in her disappearance, but the real horror of the scenario is in dealing with the ghastly attitudes of the guards which has the implicit support of Los Angeles society. Investigating the disappearance will challenging enough, but stomaching the attitudes of the guards and the conditions the Mexicans are kept in is likely to be more challenging, worse because they may have to stomach it in order to get into the stockade. What is interesting about how the author of the scenario—an immigration lawyer—draws parallels between ‘A Fresh Coat of White Paint’ and the contemporary situation with immigration and migrants.

‘A Family Way’ switches to New York and confronts an issue at the heart of the Mythos, which has been alluded to over and over in Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraftian fiction—specifically the sexual assault on men and women by Deep Ones. When a young lady of the investigators’ acquaintance attempts to seduce one of them, it is quickly revealed that she is pregnant. Not only that, but pregnant through rape. The horror of this situation is compounded by the then attitudes towards women with unwanted pregnancies, rape, and the solutions to the problem. This includes abortion. Which will lead to some interesting—probably demanding—roleplaying as the players navigate their investigators through the situation and the Keeper portrays the victim. It almost seems superfluous that the scenario compounds the situation with the return of the Deep Ones responsible and whilst this leads to a memorable confrontation in New York harbour, hopefully in the long term the Keeper and players alike will remember ‘A Family Way’ for the nature of its origins and the roleplaying required.

Helen Gould’s ‘Fire Without Light’ confronts rampant racism and mob violence in the aftermath of the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921 in Oklahoma. It is a year later and tensions between the black and white communities in the town are still high—and set to get even higher as the scenario progresses. Whether as survivors of the riots, journalists or activists come to the town a year later, preachers come to provide succour, the investigators will find themselves faced with three challenges. The first is defusing the rising tensions to prevent any further outbreaks of violence, whilst the second is trying to find out what is causing tensions to escalate once again. The third though, is probably the most difficult, and again is having to deal with both the racism of the period and the then society’s acceptance of it.  The consequences of the investigators’ actions are nicely explored and there are potential links in the scenario’s set-up to Harlem Unbound.

The last scenario in the anthology takes the investigators to Maine and another period of intolerance and racism. ‘They Are From Away’ by Charles Gerard is set in the Pine Tree State in 1923 at a time when the Ku Klux Klan was highly active in the state’s politics. The targets of the Klan’s racism in this scenario are not African Americans, but rather French-Canadian immigrants who work the state’s lumber camps. The migrant workers are also vilified for their Roman Catholicism, which is decried as being unamerican. The investigators—professionals within the city’s Catholic community, church officials, activists rallying against the Klan’s activities, dissatisfied members of local law enforcement, and so on—are called to Bangor where a local church and the French-Canadian immigrants have both been subject to a rash of strange sanguinary occurrences. The investigation takes place against a backdrop of growing Klan activity, French-Canadian obstinance, and rumours of a curse, but help will come from a surprising source. For the most part, this is a straightforward enough investigative scenario, though one which literally has a bloody ending.

Rounding out An Inner Darkness is a trio of Investigator Organisations, a feature of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition which helps explain and support the Investigators’ motivations for looking into the Mythos again and again. They start off strongly with ‘The Caldwell Book Mobile Service’ by Oscar Rios, a mobile library service which not only provides communities without a library access to books to borrow, but also fights the Mythos! The other two are both by Jeff Moeller and are not as strong. ‘A Bunch of Troublemakers’ describes a suffragette who infiltrates activist groups and spurs them into investigating the Mythos, whilst ‘Friends from Boston’ broadly details a protest group which funds efforts to expose governmental abuse, highlight injustice, and support reform. In comparison to ‘The Caldwell Book Mobile Service’ neither feel immediately compelling.

Physically, An Inner Darkness is a step up in quality from previous books from Golden Goblin Press. Colour is used throughout, and whilst the book is liberally illustrated, the use of colour mars some of the artwork, making it look cartoonish and detracting from its intended impact. Photographs are used occasionally too, and these are sharp and well presented. The writing though, does feel rushed in places, and perhaps could have done with a closer edit.

An Inner Darkness presents a sextet of well researched, heavily historical scenarios which confront the reader, the player, the Keeper, and the investigator with the injustices, the awful attitudes, and accepted practices of the period. This makes them difficult to run—as does the specific time periods for many of the scenarios—and to play. As they should. Playing these scenarios should make player and Keeper alike uncomfortable, for they highlight how horror can be found in mankind’s darkest nature—and that is even before the Mythos exploits that nature. An Inner Darkness: Fighting for Justice Against Eldritch Horrors and Our Own Inhumanity deserves its ‘Mature Content’ advisory not just because of the subject matter, but also because despite its distasteful nature, it is handled in a mature fashion.